


Not to Me, Not if it's You

by SnarkySoleil



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood, Bulge Sucking (Homestuck), Bulges and Nooks (Homestuck), Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Minor Original Character(s), Physical Therapy, Quadrant Vacillation, Who Put All This Plot in my Porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-20
Updated: 2019-08-20
Packaged: 2020-09-19 00:11:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20321851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SnarkySoleil/pseuds/SnarkySoleil
Summary: "AU in which Dirk is a member of a ragtag spaceship of humans and trolls. They come across a ship, floating in space, with the bare remains of life strapped into the helmscolumn. He's missing bits and has enough trauma to fill an army, and he's not really willing to let anyone near him at first.Enter Dirk. He's got enough knowhow to maybe put this guy back together and give him his limbs and his life back. Psii, as he's called, is totally not a pet project. Absolutely not. Just a pitiful, pathetic excuse for a troll and well, shit, Dirk's catching the feels. RIP. It's totally fine that he wants to simultaneously pap this guy's lights out and fuck him senseless...right?"In space, no one can hear you smash quadrants.





	Not to Me, Not if it's You

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ChasetheSun2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChasetheSun2/gifts).

> Thank you, ChasetheSun2, for giving me the chance to write the good good Psii content we all deserve. This prompt quite literally made me ship DirkPsii. How dare you. You come into my house? On the day of my daughter's wedding, and saddle me with this responsibility? For shame, dude.

They had an hour before the scuttled ship in front of them got sucked into the dying star. Dirk leaned against his work, twisting his head to the side to watch the yawning expanse of the _ BC Ignition _ slide below them. Well, below in the sense that their current orientation with false gravity dictated that the ship was below. Flip the ship turnways, and the _ Ignition _flashed behind them, above them, every which way in a sickening orbit around its angry sun.

“Clean up, Strider,” said the captain, voice echoing from the intercom on the wall. Dirk rolled his eyes as he stood up, shaking grit from his torn pants and heading to the intercom as the captain continued speaking. “We’ve got an hour in this baby before she turns into so much ash on our viewports.”

“Could be a guy, you ever thought of that?” Dirk said, pressing a thumb to the transmit button. He did not let up to give the captain time to continue. “This is an old school Alternian battleship, they still used perma-helmsmen. Don’t be insensitive.” He released the intercom, shrugging on the space-suit from its wall compartment as the intercom crackled and spluttered. Dirk couldn’t tell where the mechanical futz began and where the old bronzeblood’s irritated wheezing ended. 

“Don’t give me any sass, brat, just get your ass in gear.”

“Have I ever told you how much I love your impromptu freestyles, captain? You’re a poet and you didn’t even know it.”

“_ Strider. _”

“Oh, yessir, right away, sir.” Dirk fixed the helmet over his head, a smirk still twitching at the corners of his lips as he strolled away from the snarling intercom.

He met the others of the salvage crew on the way, falling into step behind Belial and Jen, the interspecies chucklefuck brigade arguing about what color to paint their findings. Desdee sidled alongside him, a sway to the seadweller’s step that had Dirk grapevining his way two steps to the left of her whole vibe.

“No, we’re not going to find anything Earth-Gucci on an old-Alternian vessel,” he said, raising a hand to deflect her clawing fingers from his shoulder.

Desdee pouted, sucking her cheeks in in a characteristic fishy pout. “Oh but _ please _, I am the ship’s authority on Alternian artifacts and I really think--”

“Says the gal hatched on a prison colony!” Jen chirped, wide grin crinkling her face paint.

“Experienced scrappers only, Dee,” Dirk said, pushing the airlock button at the door. “We’ll grab you somethin’ shiny, promise.”

“It better be gold!” Desdee said, and then whirled away in a flash of braids.

“When you gonna propoooooose, Dirk?” Belial said, leaning down to rest a gigantic arm on Jen’s shoulder. “Ain’t that something you humans do?”

Dirk turned forward, eyebrows staying fixed in an unimpressed line. “No thanks.”

“Oh come on!” Jen leaned in, almost falling over as Belial lifted his hand off her. “Quadrants aren’t so bad!”

“I’m not interested, pitch, pale, or anything in between,” Dirk said. The airlock opened, and the three shuffled inside. Jen put her helmet on, and Belial leaned down again to make sure her oxygen tanks were topped up. “I platonically orchestrate a series of elaborate traps in order to ascertain she quits stealing my fuckin’ hotpants.”

Belial laughed, but the noise of the second pair of airlock doors opening to the void of space drowned him out. They all made sure their trajectories were locked into their suits’ internal computers, and blasted off in a shower of sparks from their boots.

* * *

Dirk’s footsteps echoed down the halls of the decrepit ship, the only sound for miles. Belial and Jen had touched down over on the port side of the ship, hoping to peel apart the captain’s quarters for anything of superficial value. Plus, Desdee needed more medical supplies from the medbay. The crew didn’t need it anymore.

Something crunched underneath Dirk’s foot, and he shone his light down to catch the edges of a shattered femur. Dirk raised his light up, along the bone and against the wall where a trollian skeleton had slumped out of a bench. Dirk stood frozen, his heart-rate spiking to a thunderous gallop before he caught himself. He closed his eyes, took a breath in through his nose, and exhaled before turning on his heel and continuing on his way. 

“Bel, Jen, come in,” he said. “Got any ideas what killed this crew? I don’t need some kind of space zombie virus eating my ass.”

He waited for a response, but his internal radio only rewarded him with what sounded like a very undignified gasping and slick sounds. Dirk sighed, and muted the channel. He tightened his grip on his light, and kept walking. Whatever. Let those two dick around-- he had bigger fish to fry. 

Whatever had killed the crew, they seemed to have all gone quietly. No one seemed in any rush to avert a disaster, and the ship had apparently faded into disrepair like a deer’s carcass slowly decomposing in the sun with only the ants to pick its bones. Well, this ant wanted to pick the deer’s brain and see what made it tick. Getting his hands on old helming tech could jumpstart their ship for a couple years at least, especially with Dirk’s engineering prowess.

He stopped in front of a door so rusted it hung half-off its hinges. Dirk rolled his shoulders before gripping his light between his teeth, putting his shoulder against the door and shoving to make enough space for him to pass. God, he could really use Belial right now. The door stayed in place long enough for Dirk to break a sweat, relenting with a groan before it crashed to the floor. Dirk fell after the door, arms pinwheeling once before he popped back on his heels in a practiced spring. His light fell from his mouth, spinning across the warped tile and coming to rest in a tangle of rotted biowires. Dirk crouched, picking up the light and standing in time to come face to face with a corpse.

Dirk jumped then, honestly jumped, but kept a firm grip on his light. The corpse remained motionless, mouth trapped in a rigid snarl as it hung in a decaying helming harness. Dirk exhaled, calming his jittering nerves as morbid curiosity took over. The troll had maintained an astonishing amount of flesh compared to the crew, no doubt the heavy door managing to seal in the helming chamber’s moisture for at least a few decades. Dirk leaned in, taking note of how the biowires sank into the troll’s necrotic flesh at his arms. 

“You got any arms left, old man?” he said, shining his light up. Probably no, considering the smell coating the room with the sickly smell of decay. It smelled like rotten cabbage, or maybe eggs. Either way, Dirk really wished he’d had lunch before this so he didn’t have to contemplate the food-resemblances of a dead troll. Instead he reached for the corpse’s goggles, trying to get a peek at the eyes beneath.

The corpse lunged forward in a shower of red and blue sparks, letting out a choked screech and missing Dirk’s hand by centimeters. Dirk jumped back, unmuting the radio channel as the biowires started twisting around his feet, shaking the dust from their rotted lengths and turning pointed tips towards him. “Belial! Jen!”

“Call in a minute,” Belial said, a heady groan rattling through the channel.

“Helmsblock! Now!”

“Oh shit, you good?”

Dirk lowered his hand from the transmission button, backing towards the door as the wires snaked towards him. The helmsman’s eyes burned with unearthly fire, so bright that their blue and red light eclipsed that of Dirk’s own light. The troll screamed something unintelligible, a mix of numbers and alarm codes that Dirk couldn’t quite grasp. The troll tugged forward against his harness, spittle flying from his gnashing teeth as he strained forward.

Dirk raised the hand with the light, keeping it tucked between his thumb and index finger as he raised his hands. Wait, how did trolls like it? He extended his arms out, hands palm-up to face the ceiling with his wrists bared to the incoherent helmsman in the universal troll symbol of surrender. “Hey, take it easy! I’m not here to hurt you.”

The troll laughed, a thin cackle that trailed off into a ragged cough. Blood spattered against the floor. He yelled something again, a rough chant of ones and zeroes. Dirk had spent enough time programming ship AI to recognize binary, but translating on the fly remained out of his repertoire unless he happened to be a genius that happened to install various coding languages into his suit in case of some downtime.

Dirk pressed a button at his wrist, lifting it up towards the rabid troll. Numbers flashed across the display panel, flickering before threading themselves into coherent words.

**> INTRUDER DETECTED**  
** > REPLACE GAS CANISTERS**  
** > INTRUDER DETECTED**  
** > ATTEMPTED HELMSMAN TAMPERING DETECTED**  
** > INTRUDER**  
** > KILL ME**  
** > SELF-DESTRUCT CAPABILITIES DISABLED**  
** > KILL ME**  
** > KILL ME**  
** > KILL ME**

Dirk ran his tongue along his lips, eyes flicking between the wires still poised with spear-tips aiming for his chest. “So here’s how it’s gonna go,” he said, keeping his voice low and slow. “You’re going to lower those wires. Those things haven’t seen a lick of water in years, or sweeps, I guess, huh? You’re gonna lower those things, I’ll step back, and we’ll take a good long look at each other. Sound amenable to you, old man?”

The helmsman stared at him with unblinking eyes, teeth still bared. Then, one by one, the biowires dropped to the floor. Dirk nodded, letting out a breath as he counted backwards from ten. The helmsman copied him, breath rattling audibly in his lungs. 

“See, that’s not so hard.” Dirk took a step forward, stopping with a foot midair as the old troll hissed with doubled ears flaring out. “Easy, champ, easy. My eyes are kind of hot trash in the dark. Give a simple diurnal mammal a break.”

The helmsman’s lip twitched, but he did not hiss again as Dirk completed the step. Dirk made sure to keep his bright beam from the troll’s eyes, making a thorough pass over the troll’s emaciated body. The skin tight uniform had rotted right off the helmsman in places, revealing patches of sunken skin that had gone almost black. “Damn. You rotting, or just old as fuck?” He looked down at the panel at his wrist as the troll spat back a halting set of binary.

**>BOTH**  
** > EIGHT ADULT MOLTS TO DATE**  
** > CONFIRM DATE: 2670 IN THE REIGN OF HER IMPERIAL CONDESCENSION**

“You’re shootin’ a little off the mark there,” Dirk said, nudging a withered biowire with his foot. “Add a couple centuries on there, and you’ll have yourself a close approximation to our place in the timeline. The Empress died a long time ago. I think a Tyrian named Feferi’s in charge back there now.”

The helmsman blinked, and Dirk could almost hear the way his crusted lids crackled as they struggled to return moisture to the troll’s eyes.

**> DAMN MY ENGINEERING SKILLS AND FUCK THIS MEAT SACK RIGHT UP THE WASTECHUTE  
> EXPECTED LIFE SUPPORT: TEN SWEEPS**

Dirk raised his eyebrows. “You built this rig?” The old troll let out another wet laugh, and nodded. “Damn. I would say props to you, but seems like you’re over it.”

**> REWARDED WITH A TEST DRIVE**

“Sounds like a shitty test drive to me. What’s your name, old man? Is there any record of you?”

**> IDENTITY NOT STORED IN DATA BANKS. DESIGNATION HELMSMAN.**

“Well, alright, Helmsman. So how did all the crew--”

“Dirk!”

Dirk jumped as Jen skittered into the room, Belial hot on her heels. They both had their helmets on, but Jen was sweating enough to fog up the glass. She decompressed to freshen up her screen, taking a few more steps forward before stopping dead. “Oh my god is that--”

The Helmsman started screaming again before Jen could finish her sentence, a high pitched screech that had even Dirk wincing. “Out,” he said, putting his hands on their shoulders (or rather, Belial’s waist), and marching them backwards. He lowered his voice, making sure his voice did not transmit beyond a narrow radius around them. “Slip me the strongest horse tranq you got, Belial. I know you’re packing.”

Belial’s brows furrowed, but he reached into his pocket and slid a capped needle from his own pants to Dirk’s. Dirk waved them both away, turning back to the once-again frantic Helmsman shredding his vocal cords with his desperate shrieking. He didn’t stop screeching until Dirk approached again, wrists again bared.

**> INTRUDER ALERT**  
** > INTRUDER ALERT**  
** > NAME RANK BLOOD HEX CODE**

“Relax, Helmsman, they’re gone,” Dirk said. “We don’t need ranks around here, and I can assure you that blood doesn’t even matter these days. You’re not speaking to an Alternian colonial mission, I can tell you that much.”

The Helmsman stopped screaming in binary, heaving for breath. Dirk could see the sweat plastering what remained of his uniform to his bony chest. It made something in his gut twist. Instead of acknowledging that he kept walking forward, wrists still exposed to the ancient troll. “Easy. Take a few breaths. They’re not going to hurt you.”

The Helmsman’s eyes narrowed, but the biowires didn’t so much as twitch as Dirk stepped over them and within arm’s reach. “It’s fine,” Dirk said. “I called them because you just about gave me a heart attack back there, and I don’t even have health insurance.”

The Helmsman kept watching his approach, and started to snarl in warning as Dirk got too close for comfort. By that point it was too late, and Dirk plunged the needle he slipped from his pocket into the meatiest part he could find of the troll’s shoulder. The Helmsman screamed, biowires rising in a furious maelstrom. One managed to have some bite, lashing a deep slice into Dirk’s cheek. He refused to back away, one hand grasping the Helmsman’s jaw. “It’s okay,” he repeated, gripping the troll’s face as firmly as he dared. “It’s going to be okay.”

The Helmsman searched his face for anything resembling mercy, but upon finding a blank mask his own face fell into despair. One moment of that and he slumped forward, biowires falling back to the floor with hollow slaps against the metal.

* * *

Desdee just about ripped Dirk a new asshole when the scrappers came back with a half-decayed troll instead of jewelry, stopping only when Dirk reminded her she did ask for something gold. She patched up the goldblood while swearing under her breath, while Belial and Jen went off to placate the captain with some of their plundered trinkets. Despite her grumbling Desdee stayed awake for eight hours while stitching the Helmsman back into something resembling a troll. All his limbs had to go, only stringy sinew holding together the rotted bones. After that she sunk the Helmsman into a medicated coma, where he remained for a month following.

Dirk found himself in the medbay often, sitting beside the Helmsman’s medical platform. His visits started so he could measure the old troll’s limbs, testing nerve endings for robotic prosthetics the captain made very clear came out of Dirk’s paycheck. Dirk didn’t mind. He hadn’t found machinery to advance the ship, no, but he’d found something better-- a living museum of battles and technological advancement. He’d downloaded the _ Ignition’s _ records before they returned to the ship, which detailed the _ Ignition’s _presence at just about every old Alternian battle since the crowning of the Condescension. If the Helmsman had been the engineer of his own doom, then that meant he had worlds of knowledge to share. Eventually no further adjustments on the prosthetics could happen without input from the awoken Helmsman so Dirk sat beside him in silence, watching the Helmsman sleep and recover.

When he woke up, however, the Helmsman made it very clear he had no intention of cooperating. When Desdee tried to switch his IVs the old troll lashed out, slamming psionics so hard in her direction they almost blew a hole in the wall. Even Belial couldn’t pin down the skeletal troll, who managed to just about take a chunk out of the purple’s ear if not for quick intervention. The crew found themselves gathered around the door to the medbay every few hours, pulling straws to see who would try to force food down the Helmsman’s throat. Only Dirk ever succeeded, as he’d managed to escape bodily harm so far every time he went in to tweak the psion’s prosthetics. 

Tonight he strolled in with his tool bag slung over his shoulder, throwing a lazy salute to Desdee on his way past and receiving a middle finger in response. “Get him walking,” she said, the door sliding closed behind her. 

Dirk deposited his bag on the chair adjacent to the Helmsman’s medical platform, folding his arms. “Okay, on a scale of one to ten, how prolapsed is the asshole of Desdee’s day?”

“Twelve.” The Helmsman’s voice was rough as ever, clawing its way up and out of his throat. He still preferred binary, falling back on it often, but spoke less and less of it as his time as a ship faded behind him. 

“That’s not on the scale, old man,” Dirk said, pulling a screwdriver and needle nose pliers from his bag.

The Helmsman snorted, bending his knee up towards Dirk to allow him access to the joint. “Your scale is both arbitrary and crass.”

“You told Belial to suck, quote, your meter-long bulges yesterday, if I remember right.”

The Helmsman hummed. “His fault he refused an honest offer.”

Dirk rolled his eyes behind his shades, opening up the panel along the prosthetic’s joint. The Helmsman winced as Dirk pulled at a wire, snipping it with his pliers. “You’ve never been honest in your life.”

“You are, what is the phrase- calling the kettle black, mammal.” The Helmsman gritted his teeth, flinching as Dirk tugged another wire from its casing with ruthless efficiency. “Why do you bother with that?”

“It’s a coping mechanism and I’m very sensitive about it, I’ll have you know,” said Dirk, placing a hand to his chest with mock offense. He kept his face blank.

The Helmsman raised an eyebrow. “So was that a joke, because I did mean my leg.”

Dirk lowered his hand. “A joke that sailed right over your head like an anemic seagull. An easy catch, and you biffed it. You really must be going senile if you think I would ever have such a flaw.” The Helmsman rolled his eyes, but Dirk kept talking as he brandished his pliers. “And I waste so much time on your concave ass because I didn’t waste thirteen thousand credits on your pathetic husk of a frame to have you sit in bed and feel sorry for yourself.”

“Is that a lot?”

“Yes.”

“Hmm.” The Helmsman tipped his head back, looking up at the ceiling. He’d filled out a lot in the month following his rescue, but the remnant hollowness to his cheeks made something pang inside of Dirk’s chest. “I think you are the one exacerbating the issue of your shrinking wallet.”

“Say that again for me, lisping wonder?”

The Helmsman dropped his eyes to meet Dirk’s gaze. “01000101 01111000 01100001 01100011 01100101 01110010 01100010 01100001 01110100 01100101 00100000,” he deadpanned, a rapidfire drone that left him gasping for air.

“Don’t be petty.”

“As if you could stop me.”

“I could, I really could,” Dirk said. He threaded a new length of wire into the prosthetic joint, wrapping it carefully to make sure it didn’t tangle before reattaching the panel. He patted the Helmsman’s leg, who lowered it down without any stiffness this time.

“You couldn’t keep a mewbeast from a bowl of milk.”

“Hey, herding cats is pretty fuckin’ difficult. Just ask my sibling.”

“I don’t know what--” The Helmsman’s words cut off with a yelp as Dirk grabbed him by the elbow, hoisting him up out of bed and onto his feet. The troll wobbled, threatening to tip forward and only catching himself by Dirk’s forearms. His spindly fingers were hot against Dirk’s skin. “You _ bastard. _”

“You don’t know my parents, nor the sanctity of their holy matrimony.”

The Helmsman did not seem impressed, eyes narrowed to dangerous slits as his robotic legs quaked underneath him. Dirk took a step back, keeping his hands braced on the Helmsman’s arm as the troll took a clumsy step forward. The steps grew more confident as they kept walking, in contrast to the pained wheezing that started halfway through.

Finally the Helmsman dug in his heels, leaning back so hard Dirk had to struggle to keep him upright. “I can’t. I can’t, Dirk I can’t-”

“Come on,” Dirk said, tugging at the troll’s metal wrists. “Two more steps, I promise.”

“Your promises mean nothing,” the goldblood said, and though he was mostly just throwing an impersonal fit Dirk couldn’t help suck in a sharp breath through his nose. The Helmsman’s ears flicked, but he said nothing about it as he took two more laborious steps forward. 

“Alright, wondertroll, now let’s march your ass back to bed.”

The Helmsman’s ears drooped downwards, plastering against his skull as he looked back the way they’d come across the medbay. “Your cruelty knows no bounds.”

“I mean, if you weren’t such a bitch about this I’d give you a safeword, but physical therapy’s kind of a whole different ball game.” Dirk turned them around, taking baby steps backwards on the way back to the Helmsman’s medical platform. “It’s like if somebody decided to throw a World Cup hissy fit in a woman’s soccer game. Are you catching my drift here, old man?”

“No.”

“I’m saying, suck it up, Neymar, you’re in the big leagues now.”

* * *

The Helmsman’s resistance to physical therapy continued, alleviated only by increments when Dirk dropped by to help out. Which was every day, so everyone kind of let him take over the Helmsman’s care. Desdee even showed Dirk how to change the Helmsman’s IV, and Dirk pretended to drink in the lessons like a pliant sponge while running over electrolyte balances in his own head. He knew how to handle a wounded man.

The Helmsman was a far cry from a wounded man however, and more of a shambling corpse learning how to be a person again. Despite his dry humor and petty jabs, Dirk still caught him staring at a wall every time he went to the medbay, eyes glassy and out of focus as he mouthed forgotten languages to himself. Dirk ignored the jabs from the rest of the crew, and deflected Desdee’s icy jealousy with the blunt reminder that no, disliking labels didn’t make him less of a gay man so she didn’t have a shot anyway.

Besides, he wasn’t crushing on the Helmsman. The Helmsman just happened to be walking history and a technological wonder, wrapped up in a neat package of Alternian and now Earthly engineering thanks to his ingenuity. Dirk could turn up his chin and keep walking forward when he heard the Helmsman’s breath catch in his throat when he woke him from a daymare. He could march the Helmsman down the entire length of the medbay without mercy, and stop only when silent tears streaked down the troll’s delicate jaw. He just had to keep walking. One step after another until two steps became three, and he would keep walking firmly into this goddamn ocean of denial until he drowned.

God, this sucked. Dirk stared at the ceiling of his bunk down in the engine room, fists clenched by his sides. He’d left the Helmsman’s side a few hours ago, ordering the old battery to get some shuteye, but here he was staring wistfully at the ceiling like some hormonal teenager. Okay, no, less of a hormonal teenager and more like an over-emotional chihuahua that played at guard dog. His whole body ached with sympathy with every creak of the Helmsman’s remaining bones, and every snide comment from Desdee or the captain had his hackles rising. He just wanted the Helmsman to feel better, to be better, and to soothe the ache thudding against both their chests.

Dirk closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. He tried counting backwards from ten, but somewhere around seven his mind wandered. He’d pushed the Helmsman harder than ever today, bringing him out of the medbay out near the galley. He still felt the troll’s hands in his, brittle things that clung like spiders as a broom swept their webs away. He’d wrapped his whole hand around the Helmsman’s wrist with room to spare, coaxing him onwards as the psion whined about his sore stumps. Sweat dripped down the old troll’s narrow nose, thick brows knitting together as he clunked his way onwards. He’d bowed his head so low that Dirk could smell the antiseptic dry shampoo in his hair, the characteristic acid-tinged whiff of stressed insectoid pheromones wafting up from his neck. Dirk would’ve sooner stuck his head directly in the engine’s exhaust chute than see the Helmsman so stressed again.

So here he was, floors away from the medbay and alone with his thoughts. Dirk screwed his eyes shut even tighter, trying and failing to dispel the image of the Helmsman lying prone in bed, head tipped back and breathing slow as his daily hit of painkillers hit his system. Dirk’s hand drifted up to his jaw, ignoring the stubble in favor of imagining the Helmsman’s silky skin, soft under his hand and dark as a storming sky.

Dirk’s hand had just slipped under the waistband of his boxers when the ship shuddered, tipping to its side and almost rolling before the artificial gravity caught up. Dirk groaned, pulling his hand back and rubbing at his eyes. While turbulence wasn’t life-threatening, it had killed his very confused pity-boner. No alarms had gone off, so he felt comfortable closing his eyes again until the intercom crackled to life.

“Strider!” Desdee’s voice was shrill, borderline supersonic with genuine fear. “Get up here and get your pissblood under control!”

Dirk jumped to his feet, already halfway into his pants as he fumbled with the call button. “What’s wrong with him?”

“He’s wrecking my equipment, that’s what!” A muffled crash and a scream of binary echoed through the transmission. “We need those antibiotics, Helmsman! Do you know how much all that cost? You piece of shit, put down that chair, calm down--”

Another scream, from Desdee this time, and the line went silent. Dirk swore, leaving his shades behind and squinting against the ship’s blaring lights as he sprinted up to the upper levels of the ship. 

He found Desdee crumpled on the floor outside the medbay, braids cascading over the ground in an inky pool. Dirk rolled her over, catching sight of a lurid violet bruise blooming across her forehead. Belial thundered down the hall soon after, not wearing a shirt and brandishing a wrench. “What’s going on, Strider?”

“My best guess is that something set Helmsman off,” Dirk said, gathering Desdee into his arms. She murmured unintelligibly, head lolling to the side as Dirk handed her over to Belial. Lights flickered through the misted windows of the medbay, red and blue streaks of lightning. “What’s happening outside?”

“Asteroid turbulence, nothing major.” Belial straightened, eyes hard underneath the curtain of his matted hair. “You know what the captain said. If you can’t keep you pet project under control, Terry’s turning him into mincemeat.”

Dirk pushed his way past Belial into the medbay, ignoring the door as it slammed behind him in a gust of psionic energy. Dirk shaded his eyes, blinking to bring the figure encapsulated in a whirlwind of blue and red fire into focus. The Helmsman levitated in the middle of the room, head tipped back and hands clawing against empty air as his screams scraped against Dirk’s eardrums. Furniture and medical equipment swirled around him in the psionic storm, ripping to shreds like shreds of paper caught in a jet engine.

Dirk stepped forward. The figure lurched around in its psionic cloud, eyes blazing with hellfire and malice and fear. Unspeakable fear rounded the Helmsman’s eyes into wide saucers, and a quick glance down at his wrist readout confirmed Dirk’s suspicions.

**>ALERT**  
** >ALL HANDS ON DECK**  
** > WE ARE UNDER ATTACK**  
** >EVASIVE MANEUVERS**  
** >ALERT**  
** >RESPOND**  
** >RESPOND**  
** >WHY WON’T ANYONE RESPOND**  
** > WHERE DID YOU GO**

One step became two, and Dirk found himself running forward, throwing an arm in front of his face to shield his face as metal and glass battered against him. He grabbed the Helmsman’s face, swinging him down to eye level. “Helmsman! Stop! It’s me!”

No recognition flickered across the old troll’s face, and Dirk had to duck to avoid an optic blast that seared a hole into the floor. “Helmsman!” Dirk cradled the troll’s face in his hands, rocking on his heels and stroking the skin with his thumb. “You’re not there anymore-- You’re not a ship. You don’t have to fuckin’ worry anymore, just come back!”

The Helmsman bared his teeth, only to let his jaw fall slack as Dirk patted his cheek. Dirk took a breath and repeated the gesture, resting his forehead against the Helmsman’s and shushing him. “It’s okay,” Dirk said, swaying them both as the psionics around them started to dissipate. “You disastrous wreck of a troll, everything’s going to be okay now.”

The Helmsman’s metal feet clicked as they touched ground, and Dirk braced himself in time for the troll to sag forward against him, face pushing against his hand. “I wwrrrgh--” The Helmsman coughed, wheezing twice before he remembered how to speak. “I want to die.”

“Too bad,” Dirk said, still stroking at the Helmsman’s cheek. “PTSD brain doesn’t get to make the decisions here, I do.”

“I wanted to die. It hurts, it always hurts, I hear them now crying.” The Helmsman’s voice rose into a singsong wail, scratchy voice tugging Dirk’s heartstrings. “I never stop hearing them gasping, I only wanted to die but they wouldn’t let me.”

“Who wouldn’t let you?” Somehow, Dirk already knew the answer, but asking seemed the right thing to do.

The Helmsman shuddered, swaying on the spot in time to Dirk’s hand on his cheek. “My crew. Everybody aboard, all six hundred and twenty-three souls, I killed them. They had to-- If they died, I would die, I would suffer for their sins and my own. Helming doomed my caste, so I alone had to take its creator down.”

The flippant joke about the Helmsman waxing poetic died in Dirk’s throat, replaced by an aching pity for this miserable, ancient troll that never had a chance. “Helmsman,” he said, steering the troll’s face to force eye contact. “Whatever you did, whatever they made you do, that wasn’t your fuckin’ fault, okay?”

The Helmsman laughed, a bitter, grating sound. “I saw the stars, Dirk. I saw the stars and I destroyed every single one I came across. I never resisted, I lifted my hand and sent civilizations back to the stone age.” He rocked on his heels again, head tipping back to stare at the ceiling before Dirk righted him.

“Programming doesn’t equal responsibility,” Dirk said. He papped the Helmsman hard when he opened his mouth, a borderline slap. “I don’t care if you wrote the code-- your hands weren’t at the controls.”

The Helmsman shuddered, shoulders hunching in towards himself. The ship twisted again, ruining the brief moment of calm as the troll’s eyes snapped open wide, fingers twisting so hard into Dirk’s arms he felt the bruises actively forming. “01010010 01000101 01000100 00100000 01000001 01001100 01000101 01010010 01010100 00100000 01010111 01000101 00100000 01000001 01010010 01000101 00100000 01010101 01001110 01000100 01000101 01010010 00100000 01000001 01010100 01010100 01000001 01000011 01001011--”

Dirk papped the Helmsman again, hard, pressing their foreheads together once again. “Helmsman! You’re okay, just stay with me here. Breathe. On a count, backwards.” He inhaled, slowly, starting to count aloud. “Ten, nine, eight…”

The Helmsman jerked in his grip, arms twisting as he tried t o break free and explode in another shower of psionic pyrotechnics. At the second countdown with Dirk starting over from ten the Helmsman sagged, starting to breathe in sync with him. He leaned forward, nose brushing against Dirk’s. Staring ahead, Dirk could see a single tear clinging to his lashes as he closed his eyes.

He kissed him. Dirk didn’t know why-- that was a bit gauche considering he was attempting to coax the manic troll down from a panic attack, but he found the way their lips slotted together as natural as breathing. Despite how chapped they looked, the Helmsman’s lips were soft.

The Helmsman did not pull away, only letting out a soft sigh against Dirk’s mouth. His grip loosened, a hand sliding up to Dirk’s face in a mirror to how Dirk held him. Dirk started papping the Helmsman again as they kissed, the tenseness to his own shoulders loosening as the troll rewarded him with a soft waft of honey-sweet pale pheromones his human nose could just barely detect.

Somewhere along the way the kiss became hungrier, more desperate as the Helmsman’s lips parted. Dirk sucked at his bottom lip, eliciting a rusty purr that rumbled from the troll’s chest. In the same moment they stepped back in tandem, back towards a bed not thrown about the room by the Helmsman’s storm. The Helmsman sank down with a creaking of joints, which made Dirk add a mental note to his roster about double checking the fit of the Helmsman’s knee.

He pushed away that thought for now, choosing instead to sink to the floor rather than joining the Helmsman on the medical platform. The goldblood looked dazed, ears flip-flopped every which way as Dirk tugged his loose scrubs down from his narrow hips. Dirk knew how to handle this-- he’d never slept with a troll despite Belial and Desdee’s constant flirtations, but he knew he had a handle on basic mouth stuff.

What greeted him, however, blew all hope of knowing what to do right out of the water. Two massive bulges slid from their sheath with a slick sound, somehow supporting themselves almost vertical by some obscene miracle. The Helmsman hunched as he caught Dirk staring, reaching down to try and tuck the bulges away. “I apologize, we can stop.”

Dirk put out a hand, moving the metal limb aside. “No,” he said, keeping their hands pressed together. “I just… wanted to appreciate what you’re packing. Like holy shit, Helmsman, no wonder you had trouble getting your legs back with that weighing you down.”

The Helmsman went yellow to the tips of his ears, managing a half-hearted growl that petered off into a soft gasp as Dirk leaned in. Dirk procrastinated dealing with the twin monsters in favor of further up, pressing his lips to the vicious biowire scars that radiated their way out from his prosthetics in jerky ridges of scar tissue. The Helmsman shivered, looking away as his lip twisted. His shameful avoidance lessened as Dirk continued to kiss, nipping along the jutting ribs and kissing at the craters of biowire-scars along the way.

Dirk only relented when he felt the Helmsman melting back, a hand behind him to keep himself from sinking backwards onto the medical platform. He lifted his head, putting a hand up on the Helmsman’s knee to brace himself so he could get up again. The Helmsman had other ideas, putting a hand to the back of Dirk’s head and pushing him with surprising strength and intent towards his crotch. Dirk resisted the urge to yelp, eyes flicking up to meet the Helmsman’s. The expression there convinced Dirk to stay, the borderline hopeful pleading too much to bear.

Dirk swallowed back his apprehension alongside one of the Helmsman’s bulges, the tip slipping past his lips without abandon. Okay. As long as he didn’t let the serpentine squirming activate his gag reflex, he could handle this. He knew how to get a grip on a dick. Dirk took the bulge in as deep as he could manage, wrapping loose fingers around the base and stroking. The other bulge smeared against his cheek, wiping a golden streak across the faint scar left behind by the biowires a few months back. Dirk could almost believe that was intentional, but a quick glance upward at the Helmsman’s half-lidded look of dazed ecstasy confirmed he didn’t really seem to have any intent about where his bulges went.

The bulge explored his mouth, tip running along the roof before enterprising to push its way down Dirk’s throat. Dirk choked a bit, trying to pull back, but the Helmsman’s fingers wound their way into his hair and tugged him back. Dirk closed his eyes, breathing harshly through his nose, and let his free hand grip at the Helmsman’s torso right above the prosthetic hip. He squeezed and then papped, just light enough for reassurance. _ It’s okay, I’ve got you. I’m not leaving you. _

Heat began to build in his gut, and Dirk squirmed in place on the floor with his knees aching on the metal tile. His cock chafed in his tight pants, borderline painful. He patted at the Helmsman’s hip again, this time more forceful as he let out a muffled grunt. The Helmsman released the grip on his hair and Dirk pulled back, gasping as a line of drool and pre-slurry connected him to the tip of the bulge. 

“Can I…?” he trailed off, indicating the swollen folds of a nook peeking out from underneath the writhing bulges. Not what he was used to, but at least he didn’t have to worry about shitdick considering he doubted anal prep was included in the Helmsman’s sponge bath routine.

“Please,” the Helmsman replied, shifting to put himself more on the bed and leaning back. Dirk tugged down his pants, shedding his boots and socks as well in one smooth motion. He couldn’t stand the way the Helmsman looked at him, hope and apprehension wrapped up in one pitiful package. He wanted the other Helmsman back, the defiant shitlord that tried to bite his ear after a particularly rough prosthetic adjustment or walk down the hall. He had put the Helmsman back together once before, doing it a second time couldn’t be that hard.

Dirk clambered onto the bed with the Helmsman, sliding between the troll’s parting legs. The Helmsman jumped as the ship shuddered again, but Dirk interrupted his panic with another kiss that started rough and ended soft and open-mouthed. The Helmsman relaxed, showing no qualms about the salty taste of slurry on Dirk’s lips. Dirk pulled back, ignoring the goldblood’s low growl as he chased his mouth in favor of glancing down so he could line himself up.

The Helmsman’s irritation melted away as Dirk’s dick found its way home, mouth falling open in a silent exhale as he was filled. Dirk took it slow, considering his cock didn’t taper as the Helmsman’s did, and he could already feel how the Helmsman’s tunnel narrowed around him. Ridges of muscle tightened around him, fluttering as he continued to thrust in languid pushes that prompted soft gasps from the troll beneath him. The Helmsman’s hips started to rock in sync with Dirk’s, slow rolls that managed to tease a groan out of Dirk as he bent over the Helmsman. He didn’t want to lower himself and press against the Helmsman, as much as he craved the contact, to feel their bodies shift against each other. He didn’t want to break the Helmsman.

The Helmsman had different plans however, putting a hand between Dirk’s clothed shoulders and pressing in. Dirk pushed away, earning another protesting growl before the Helmsman realized Dirk was taking off his shirt and hastened to help. Dirk tossed the shirt to ground, reaching to unbutton the Helmsman’s own only to have the buttons falling straight off in a pulse of psionics. The Helmsman grinned all lopsided up at him, fangs catching the corner of his bottom lip. “Neat trick, yes?”

“You did ruin your shirt, but sure,” said Dirk. The Helmsman snorted, and pressed again at Dirk’s back to bring him in. Dirk’s chest hair brushed against the troll’s skin in direct contrast with the Helmsman’s smoothness, but this only brought a purr out of the goldblood that warmed Dirk to his core. “You’re so soft,” Dirk said, resuming the slow pumping of his hips.

“Lies and slander.” The Helmsman closed his eyes, letting out a thin moan as Dirk finally seated himself fully inside him. “I could have you here for hours, just petting at you.”

“Like the filthy mammal I am, right?”

“Oh Dirk,” the Helmsman said, putting a hand to Dirk’s cheek. The softness in his eyes just about killed Dirk. “You are worth so much more than you know.” He leaned up then, their noses poking together. “Now fuck me like you mean it, you mammalian brat.”

Dirk snorted, shoving lightly at the Helmsman’s cheek. He obliged the Helmsman’s order, since he planned on moving faster anyway. The Helmsman tipped his head back and trilled, outright trilled like a flurry of screaming cicadas entwined in a mating dance, and Dirk thrust even harder to trigger another sound like that out of him. He couldn’t hold back his own noises, grunting with every slick thrust into the Helmsman’s nook. The Helmsman bent his knee up and kept it spread out with a hand, foot braced on the bed to give more strength to his own movements.

The Helmsman’s bulges refused to stay out of the situation, both wrapping around the base of Dirk’s cock. Dirk outright groaned as one squeezed around one of his balls, just tight enough his dick somehow managed to feel even stiffer inside of the Helmsman’s nook. The Helmsman had his head pressed back against the pillow, throat bared to the sky in a helpless gesture of trollish submission as Dirk pounded him into the mattress. Pheromones swam in a haze around them, the honeyed pale mixing with something deeper, something meatier and redder that had Dirk hooked like a purple junky. He drank in every moan, every click and trill that the Helmsman rewarded him with, and tucked his face into the troll’s neck to press kisses to the underside of his jaw.

The bulges warned him first, growing stiff around Dirk’s cock. Dirk didn’t let up his jerky pace, still thrusting despite the way the Helmsman’s nook began to tighten in a maddening vice around him. Dirk lifted himself up with one arm on the bed, panting as sweat dripped down his nose. “You trolls hfffg- use pails, right? You want--”

The Helmsman moaned, breathing unsteady as he tried to form something close to words. “Fill me,” he finally gasped out. “Don’t leave me now.”

Dirk let out a slow breath, settling back down on top of the Helmsman who wrapped his arms tight around him. “Yeah, okay. I’ve got you, I’m not leaving you.” Not having to get up worked for him, anyways. The temporary blue balls might just kill him at this point, medically debunking notwithstanding. 

The Helmsman came first, hips jerking once as his grip on Dirk tightened and he wailed to the heavens. A rush of slurry jetted from his bulges, coating both their stomachs in a warm smear of viscous yellow. Dirk kicked up his own thrusting, fucking the troll through his orgasm as a halo of overstimulated psioncis swirled around their heads. His own orgasm followed soon after and Dirk stopped dead, managing two more shallow thrusts before ejaculating inside his partner. He felt something ripple at the head of his dick, something sucking the cum up into some unseen depths within the Helmsman.

They stayed pressed together for a few minutes, their panting the only sound breaking the silence. Dirk rolled finally, the Helmsman murmuring softly in weak protest as he pulled out. Dirk reached out, putting a hand on the Helmsman’s shoulder and bringing him in. The Helmsman sighed, shifting to rest his head upon Dirk’s chest. Dirk lifted his chin to accommodate the towering horns, then rested his head between them. When the ship shuddered again in another wave of turbulence, the Helmsman did not so much as twitch.

“I do not deserve this,” the Helmsman said finally, breaking the contented silence between them. “I have done horrific things, Dirk, I am far more trouble than I am worth.”

“I don’t give two shits about how much you think you’re worth,” Dirk said. He rubbed at the Helmsman’s back, stroking in slow circles that had the troll sighing. “You don’t get to decide that, not in this economy.”

Silence fell between them again as their breathing slowed, and the increments between bouts of turbulence stretched longer and longer. “I still cannot remember my name,” the Helmsman said, unprompted.

Dirk grimaced. “Yeah, I didn’t expect a fuck to jostle that out of you.”

The Helmsman snorted. “Of course, but you deserve to know me before all this. Helmsman is the title thrust upon me. I was the Psiioniic, once, if you insist on treating me as an actual troll despite my best efforts.”

Dirk slid a wisp of black hair behind the Helmsman, no, the Psiioniic’s ear. “Got it, Psii. And no, I don’t intend to stop treating you like a living being. As long as it takes, I’ll take care of you.”

“It’s rotten work.”

“Not to me,” Dirk said. “Not if it’s you.”

**Author's Note:**

> shout out to my boy euripides circa 480 BC for hitting me up with the most heart-wrenching exchange between two pining characters I've ever seen in my fucking life with those final lines and the title, please don't sue me sir
> 
> in writing this fic i had to check with my wife to make sure i had the right dramatic world cup man-- this sent her on a twenty minute rant about Fucking Neymar and i wouldn't trade that for the world i love her very much and her soccer rage


End file.
